Category Archives: Journaling

It’s a Process

I’ve
been sick, in more ways than one. I’ve had a sinus infection. It’s
knocked me on my ass. I’ve also been dealing with disappointment. Abject
utter disappointment. Disappointment so deep it hurts. I let myself
wallow in it and be consumed with the feeling. The feeling making my
sinus infection seem a hundred times worse than perhaps it was. Or maybe
it was just that bad* that it could make me feel so helpless.

The
cause of the disappointment is not important other than to me. I’ve
spent the last few days in a fever induced haze of misery, scribbling in
my art journal and watching TV on my laptop and sleeping.

My
scrawling and scribbling in my art journal don’t reveal much to me. It
chronicles my self-centered misery, my sadness and my sneezes.**

Except
one page, a meditative page I did in a sort of mandala style. It’s also
self centered, in that there is an image of me in the middle of the
page. Radiating out from the center of the image (at the sinuses
interestingly enough) are layers of circles filled with various
patterns, alternating colors, lines, rays, circles, sheep, and gears.
All of this done on a hot colored background in cool colors.

Though
I had not planned the imagery it matches the evolution of my thoughts
over the last few days, from useless rage and helplessness to being able
to think clearly on the problem at hand and coming up with a plan that
may work. It’s not done yet, but I like where it’s going

Continue reading →

Practice

6 Replies

I've been practicing my calligraphy. I think I've told you the story of how when I was a kid I learned how to write by taking calligraphy class from my 2nd grade teacher. I had a really hard time learning cursive and was forced to spend lots and lots of time working on my penmanship, to little avail. My new, young, 2nd grade teacher, had read an article and some research on teaching kids to write via calligraphy and I became her personal experiment.

So, once a week I stayed after school and was taught some basic calligraphy. I ended up being pretty decent at it but my penmanship never got too great. In fact my handwriting is still referred to as chicken scratch and less kindly as roach droppings.

Sadly I gave up calligraphy in 8th or 8th grade since most of my peers saw it as dorky. Since I was already a geek I couldn't risk delving too far into dork territory. I regret that I gave up my enjoyment of calligraphy and worst yet that I've not had an additional 20 years of practice. I can only imagine what my black letter and gothic would look like if I'd only kept at it.

This post is less about that than the fact I took a dive in the parking lot of my DayJob and landed rather stiffly on my hand and elbow. The right side, of course, and now my wrist is slightly swollen, stiff and sore. Ice and an ace bandage are helping a lot. But writing is not comfortable and calligraphy is out of the question for awhile anyway. This is pretty frustrating for me since I've been making decent progress on my gothic writing.

The one good thing about this is that I'm forced to use less pressure when writing. The only good thing.

Flack

12 Replies

I've gotten flack for being more of an arty art journaler than a writing or cute art journaler. I don't do pretty faces with cutesy quotes. Instead I write my heart out and cover it with paint. I let my writing become part of my finished pieces, even these faces that I've been painting, they have been born out of my art journaling process. Not all of these pieces have deep writing behind the paint, but I learned this process through my art journal.

My art journal is my greatest tool in my art making arsenal. Without it, I'm not sure where my art would be today.

In the images below you can see the words peaking through the layers of paint. Sometimes my journal contains simple lists- like the lists of things I ate during a road trip, a list of purchases made one weekend, beers I tried. Other times it's long paragraphs about influences, things I've read, people I've interacted with, gripes with life. I hang my paint on top of these words, not needing to add a quote or make it pretty. My art journal is a place of no fear. I don't always show it, sometimes it's too raw.

My art journal influences my art and is influenced by my art, it's a never ending circle.

Review: Faber Castell Gelato

5 Replies

I’d
heard a lot about Faber Castell’s Gelatos. I’d heard they were like a
tube of smooshy rich watercolor. So I had to try them out. I went small
and bought a 2 pack. The only packs the local Michael’s had were either 8
packs or 2 packs. The 8 packs are all matching tones in one shade or
another, the 2 packs were the blending shades to mix with the colors. I
didn’t want to spend a lot of money on the 8 packs and the 2 pack was
only $3.50 and I had a coupon.

The
tubes are hard plastic and hold a water soluble substance that feels a
lot like chapstick, which makes sense that it’s in a chapstick-like
tube. No holds barred, I went straight into my art journal and slopped
some white onto a spot that I wanted to bring the neighboring area into
prominence while blending the color back.

Once
on the page I found the white was nicely opaque, thought it took a
decent amount of product to get that result. I really liked the look of
the product straight out of the tube, but found that without adding
water it smudged with ease. Adding some water kept a lot of the
opaqueness of the product but cut it’s greasy slick texture.

For
those of you who like to stick your fingers into paint, these are
nontoxic. I have not had a chance to test them for lightfastness, but
will do so soon.

They
lay down in a greasy thick and smooth feeling, not unlike writing on a
wall with high quality lipstick… I’ll be honest after so many rave
reviews I was expecting… MORE. Instead I was left feeling
underwhelmed. The plastic tube is brilliant marketing for adults who
don’t want to get their fingers dirty with Portfolio Water Soluble Oil
Pastels. They also have a more adult appearance than Portfolios, a
certain je ne sais quoi, if you will. They are also packaged in a way
that will appeal to adults.

Underwhelmed
is a good way to express how I feel about these. I’m not a fan of
Portfolios. They are close enough to watersoluble crayons that I don’t
see a reason to add them to my art arsenal. Instead I’ll stock up on
more watersoluble crayons. I do like the white though for it’s
opaqueness.

Dark Days

3 Replies

I notice that a lot of art journals only seem to cover the happy parts of life, as if only the pretty parts are deserving of a page.

Ignoring the crappy hard parts of life isn't the best way to deal with the garbage. Disappointment, sadness, death, and our distress all deserve to be explored and figured out in the pages of our art journals.

My art journal is a place for me to work out my thoughts and ideas, exorcise the demons if I need them gone. It's a place to explore and even fail.

I've got some dark not so happy stuff in my journals, and that's just the place to shut it away.

Waiting Area Sketches

1 Reply

Yesterday, I was doing my usual routine when sitting in a waiting room, I sketched. Usually, when I go to the orthodontist I'm in and out in 20 minutes, yesterday, I waited for 20. No big deal, I whipped out my sketchbook and sketched the people waiting. Adults were sparse and accompanied by 2 or more kids, one lady had 6!

I sketched away when a woman sat next me with her daughter. I could here some whispers and the mother finally said, "Just ask, what could it hurt?" Shortly after the girl, around 13 or so touched me on the shoulder and asked about my sketching. She was really sweet and I could have been more talkative. She was shocked to find out I was not able to make a living drawing. She watched me draw the rest of the time I was in the waiting room and we were called in at the same time.

It was neat to talk to some one who still finds art a magical thing and lacked the jaded feelings of adults.

Perfection vs Process

Friday Night

Finished Project

Rivalry

2 Replies

I started out on art early. I started drawing when I was young and kept on drawing until, well, I guess I never stopped. When I went off to High School I was one of the art kids. I spent an unusually large amount of time in the art room and drawing in study hall. I also played sports and was involved in a lot of other activities. Art was my main squeeze.

Being top dog in the art department meant I was asked to submit and participate in a lot of contests. I held a lot of disdain toward art contests, still do, and yet entered them, I still do that too. I may have been one of the top artists at my high school but I went up against this girl from our rival high school during every competition. We’ll call her Mary*. Mary was from a rich family in the town next to mine, her dad was a professor or something like that, and she went to art camp, got to take classes at the local college and played sports. No matter what I did I always came in second place to Mary, except when we played softball. Defeating her on the softball field was nothing compared to losing to her in every art contest I entered.

After 2 years of competing against her I gave up. I stopped entering contests, declaring them rigged politically in her favor. I actually told my art teacher this on multiple occasions. She always asked how I was jaded so young. The truth though was that Mary was a pretty good artist. She used color well and had been able to spend a lot of time working on her craft with some really great instructors. Mary was a hard person to have as a nemesis because she was also really nice.**

Our Senior year we had a group art show and our two schools were scheduled to be at the gallery at the same time. My friends and I were somewhat ambivalent and yet excited to have our work hanging in the local college’s gallery. It was a big deal. Somehow, Mary and I ended up working in the same room together and I got to see her work ethic up close. She was deliberate and careful, measuring her art carefully, hanging it perfectly. My friends and I used two tacks, cord and a level to give us a baseline for our art. Our teacher letting us run the show. Ours looked good, Mary’s and her classmates looked better.***

What set Mary apart from teenage me was her work ethic toward art. While I worked moderately hard at art, I focused most of my attention on my other studies. Which assured me a scholarship to school but, I think, was detrimental to me as an artist.

Now that it’s been nearly 20 years since I got out of high school I realize I was jealous of all of the opportunities Mary had because her family was well off. I also see now that my hard work has paid off for me as an artist and as a person. I’m still making art, what is Mary doing? According to the town paper I read on one of my visits to my parent’s place, Mary is now a successful graphic designer.**** Now that we’re all grown up we both win, we’re both doing something we enjoy. Honestly, I'm really happy for her.